Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Game Plan 2009 – Part Two

Woah…. Sorry about all that nattering yesterday… Did anyone read through it all!?

Anyway, looking back at my original Game Plan for 2009, I’d say I’ve pretty much stayed right on track. I have a number of 28mm Hordes of the Things Fantasy Armies and DBA Historical Armies ready to go and I’m still interested in building more. I’d still like to do some WW2 skirmish gaming and I’d like to get back into some modern gaming, on both a skirmish and battalion/brigade/divisional level - but I’m not still totally stuck on Cold War Commander. I’m not completely abandoning it or anything, but I’d like to give Modern HOTT a try. I’d also still like to resurrect something of my Quebec 1759 plan…. Now, how to do that all!?

PAINTING PRIORITIES

This Week- Paint 6-9 British Cavalrymen for Great War HOTT- Finish painting “Libby” Hero for Amanda’s “HOTT Chick” army

This Month- Cavalry Unit for John- Descent minis for Other John- Magician and Riders (if they show up) for Amanda’s “HOTT Chick” army- 6 Uruk-hai pikes (I just stumbled into 6 more of the orcs with their pikes upright – I can paint those up and rebase the me with the other upright ones and ditch the ones that are “at the ready”!)

Rest of the Year…?I’ll have to work on sorting that out… But right now I think the priorities would be:- Finish rest of cavalry units for John (haw many did I agree to paint? 4 or 5…?) - Enough Seven Years War British to play a game of DBA 1500-1900- Enough 1914 British to finish a Brigade- Finish ALL the 28mm WW2 stuff that I have - 6 stands of “regular” Dwarf warriors (Blade)

After that…?- Finish MY Norman DBA Army- Anglo-Danish DBA Army for CVT- Pict DBA Army- Middle Earth HOTT Armies – Rohan, Isengard, Mordor… (and some Heroes!)- Other Dark Age DBA Armies – Scotts, Welsh, Irish…- Other Ancient DBA Armies – 2x Romans, 2x Early Successors… - A few more elements for the Seven Years War in North American – Indians, More French and British Line troops, French Militia and colonial Troops, British Rangers… -Narnian DBA Armies

Other Stuff – some of this requires BUYING stuff. Others are dependant on whether people show any interest. Others still feend on how muchof the other stuff gets done and/or my particular mood in the moment.

- Build 2x Mi-8 and 1x MiL24 Hind helicopters. I have these kits and they’re 1/72 they’re WAY too big for use with my other “20mm” stuff – I use 1/100 to 1/144 for aircraft with those – and if you look close they might look a bit small for 28mm figures… but they’re going to be BIG models – and take up plenty enough room on the tabletop if they land, so I don’t think I’d really want anything BIGGER. Like something that actually matches the scale of the 28mm figures… Anyway, I have some 28mm modern skirmishing figures – including some Soviet VDV Air Assault troops… it would be fun to run a scenario where they fly in and do an actual Air assault complete with gunship support and everything!!!

- Highland Dwarves – I’d like to build a separate army/command of Highland Dwarves. I have enough for 6 stands of Blade (or warband…? Depending on my mood!). I’d like to pick up two packs of the Westwind Highland Dwarf Infantry – as that would make three more stands of foot (blade or warband) – and two packs of “Rammock’s Raiders” for some Riders…

- Other Dwarves – If I had another 18 metal Dwarf (either more Ghost Miniatures or West Wind) and could find some artillery piece made of metal to replace the GW plastic elements of my army I could have an entire army made of metal… I could then make a THIRD Dwarf Army made entirely of GW platstic figures….

- If there was interest I might try and crank out enough Seven Years War stuff to play out the battle at Quebec for the 250th Anniversary… again I’d have to look and see what I have and what I’d need to finish up.

-BERBERS!? What the….!? Bob gave me enough Berbers to make two stands…. And they’re kind of cool looking and would be totally easy to paint. Now, I don’t have any historical opponents… and I have no desire to BUILD any armies of their historical opponents… But I thought I could use them in HOTT as a generic Nomadic Desert Dwelling folk… they could fight my “Tomb King” undead army - if I ever got that finished.. anyway… just and idea – WAY down on the list of priorities…

- Modern 20mm – As I mentioned I’d like to try out Modern HOTT. If that went over well enough I might launch (yet another) massive Re-basing Project to get all of my 20mm stuff on bases with 60mm frontages. Most of the AFVs are already on a base that’s close (I think they’re 2.5” so they could probably just be shaved down a touch rather than totally rebased…)

I guess the Eldar and the Imperial Guard should be taken off the back burner and metaphorically be bagged up and put into the freezer for now. I just don’t think I’m going to get to that at all anytime soon…

BIG PROJECTS

Well with the success of the HOTT campaign I am already starting to think about what “Big Project” event or campaign to do next…

Obviously another HOTT Fantasy campaign would be really easy to do – I could just add additional armies and some new element options to the existing ones.

An Historical Dark Age DBA Campaign – I have the armies for Normans, Vikings, Anglo-Danish, Scotts, Irish, Welsh… In fact if Chris brought HIS Normans one could be the Normans, and another could be the other West Franks. I have enough for two Viking armies so one could be the Norweigans, and another could be Danes or Some other group of Norse…

In addition to this I was thinking about an event for possibly Mayday – or maybe just an invitational event here ‘toon – a three stage Big Battle 1066 mini-campaign. I should mention that I stole this idea from my friend Curt…) We would play the big three battles of 1066 – Fulford Gate, Stamford Bridge and Hastings. As I mentioned I have enough for at least two Viking armies (and Gary’s starting on one of his own…) and between CVT, Cory and Myself we have (or WILL have) three Anglo-Danish armies, and both CVT and I have Norman Armies… so the first battle could be two or three Viking commands against two Anglo-Danish. The winners of that battle (presumably the Vikings) will fight against Harold at Stamford Bridge with whatever they have left… so the first battle shouldn’t really be winnable for he Anglos – it’s just to whittle down the Vikings a bit… however Stamford Bridge should have the potential to be a bit more of a pitched battle – because the winner of that one will fight William the Bastard and his army at Hastings in round three! Wouldn’t it bee cool it if was Harald Hardrada instead of Godwinson defending England at Hastings…!? Anyway…just an idea…

Another possibility would be a HOTT or DBA campaign using the 1500-1900 rules and armies of the Tricorne/Horse and Musket era (somewhere between Marburian/War of the Spanish Succession and the Seven Years War). As John and I have made masters and can cast our own – it could be pretty easy to come up with 12 or so stands for a half dozen “Imagi-nations”…

Still another possibility would be a Great War Era “HITT” campaign with forces based on the armies of 1890-ish to 1910-ish. We could use a map of Europe or another completely fictional land of “imagi-nations”

6 comments:

Hey tim, i just wanted to ask a question about how you base your hott folk...as in how many to a stand, and how big the stands are for each type. ive tried the one in the book but they seems alittle to small for the models i have!! and i must admit, the way you have yours laid out makes the stands look more "army" like if you get my meaning?

I do use the suggested 60mm frontage - so I can, in theory, play with anyone who has used the suggested base sizes. I do base mine on deeper bases to accommodate more figures. I do this because I like the stands to look more like the "units" they represent.

Generally I put most infantry on 40mm deep bases and use about 1.5x as many figures are suggested. so a 4Bd would have 6 figures. a 3Bw generally have 4 or 5 figures depending on my mood or availability or physical size of the figures. There are some older 25mm figures I have that I'll actually be basing with 8 on a stand - Early imperial roman legionaries (4BD) and assorted Macedonian Successor or ECW Pike.

It does affect how they work in play, however. with that little extra depth a lot of those infantry units that would have had space to recoil once when, say, contacted on the flank at the end of an extended line. I've done this for all my stands so everyone is equally affected. If every i were to play against someone that had their figures on the "standard" (suggested) base depths they wouldn't complain as it would give them a slight edge...

Tim, I have to tell you I'm hoping you get back to some CWC action back in Norway - I gotta know if the Russians ever get stopped! My own group here in Utah has really enjoyed CWC especially gaming Arab-Israeli actions in 15mm. ANother thing we've done is use our FOW desert forces to game with BKC-since all the bases are equal to other types, it works out fairly well. Some of us have bought the FWC rules and we expect to be battling with our Epic minis soon. And I can't wait to try out the skirmish version of FWC with some Ral Partha 15mm Sci Fi figs I have left from the 80's. Anyway, It's been fascinating reading about your HOTT campaigns and it will be interesting to see what you do next. Keep up the blogging!

I like the idea of a c. 1066 campaign. I'm working on something similar, except I'm thinking of an alternate history where Harald beats Harold and a Northumbrian Kingdom is established--Harald doesn't march to meet William, but consolidates in the north.

This would allow me to use all the armies I've painted and if I set it about 80 years on I can justify the Welsh shifting to 3Sp and 3Bw from 3Wb. The Northumbrians would be Anglo-Danish, but with an element of Kn, just like the PFS--Norman immigrants.

I'm also thinking of providing minor allies--Galwegians, Marcher Lords, Manx Vikings and so on. these would be like allies, but players would bid for them. I posted something on Fanaticus on this: